Geek 101: How to schedule a tweet with an image

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Update, 5/29/2014: TweetDeck, now lets you schedule a tweet with an image, and it’s currently the easiest, hassle-free way to do so. Simply compose a tweet as normal, add an image like you normally would, then schedule the tweet. Easy peasy.

It’s extremely easy to use Twitter. It’s just as easy to tweet an image. However, Twitter doesn’t really want you to schedule tweets with images. The workaround is easy enough, here’s how.

Twitter doesn’t let you schedule tweets, nor does its official OS X client. TweetDeck allows you to schedule tweets, but if you try to attach an image, the client won’t allow it. It’s an isolated issue, but muddies up the works more than you’d think it would. The workaround is more tedious than doing it all right there in TweetDeck would be, but extremely easy to pull off nonetheless.

Imgur

First, upload the image to your image hosting site of choice. Imgur, of course, is as easy as can be. If you want to be old-school or ironic, you can use Photobucket — or really, anything else. Then, copy the image link from Imgur, usually the direct email and IM link. That method avoids the branded Imgur page entirely; just click on the Imgur photo in your album, and a host of different links will pop up, so you can choose a different format if you aren’t fond of the direct email and IM link.

Now, compose your tweet, and save about 22 or 23 characters for your image link. Paste the Imgur link directly into your tweet composition box. A good practice is to paste the Imgur link into the composition box first, so you know how many characters you have left to work with. Schedule the tweet as you normally would via TweetDeck (or your scheduling method of choice), and that’s the best you can get without paying for it.

Buffer

An even easier method to schedule a tweet with an image is to use Buffer. Buffer will host your image, so you don’t have to leave your tweet-scheduling app to upload an image (like you would if you use Imgur). The issue with Buffer, though, is that you’re only allotted 10 scheduled tweets per day on a free account. If you pay $10 per month, you have unlimited tweets available. The service works great, and it’s admittedly nice not having to leave your Twitter client to upload an image, but $10 per month just to cut Imgur out of the equation may be too steep for some (or most).

So, while scheduling a tweet with an image is an isolated, possibly infrequent scenario, there are easy ways to get it done, even though Twitter — as well as many other clients — make it seem impossible to pull off.